Lane Lambert: Talking baseball from generation to generation

Friday

Jun 27, 2008 at 12:01 AMJun 27, 2008 at 2:04 AM

With one trip to the toy store, it happened: My 4-year-old grandson Milo discovered baseball. He still gets more excited by the sight and sound of fire trucks and ambulances, and is only vaguely aware of who the Red Sox are. But ever since he spotted a plastic bat and foam ball in a neighborhood shop, he says, “Let’s play!” every time he’s with my wife and me.

Lane Lambert

With one trip to the toy store, it happened: My 4-year-old grandson Milo discovered baseball. He still gets more excited by the sight and sound of fire trucks and ambulances, and is only vaguely aware of who the Red Sox are. But ever since he spotted a plastic bat and foam ball in a neighborhood shop, he says, “Let’s play!” every time he’s with my wife and me.

So we take our stances on the grass and asphalt behind our Jamaica Plain three-decker, me with my best Papelbon look-in, Milo waving his little bat high, kind of like Varitek does when he steps into the box.

He doesn’t connect on many throws, even though I underhand them at close range, as slowly as I can manage. He tends to swing a little late, and he sometimes fools me by not swinging at all. When he does connect and the ball bounces across the driveway, he laughs with “I did it!” glee, and it’s easier to see him playing tee ball in a couple of years.

In those moments it’s also easier to see myself as a pint-size third-grader, out on a Dixie Youth field in an Alabama town a lot like Whitman and Abington.

The Braves were a Charlie Brown sort of team – one good pitcher, a reliable catcher and the rest of us. We won about as many games as we lost, and were within minutes of forfeiting one of them until our ninth man, Raiford, breathlessly arrived from the public housing project where his family lived.

As happens with major league teams, we also went through a coaching change in mid-season. One afternoon we gathered for practice with a few parents and waited for our two coaches to show up. And waited.

When it became clear they weren’t going to show up, then or ever, my father and our pitcher Keith’s father took their place – a very good thing for us, since both of them had played in high school, and my father in junior college, too. They patiently put us through our drills – and our rally began.

We won our next game, and won again. Keith no longer flung himself onto the pitcher’s mound when we lost. He put his fastball over the plate instead of over our catcher Bryan’s head. Raiford and the other outfielders were snagging flies they’d been dropping. I made my share of Pedroia throws from second to first. We dared to dream of the playoffs.

Then we played the first-place White Sox, and it looked like our rally was at an end. Their best pitcher Wyman was holding a one-run lead going into our bottom of the last inning. With two outs and a runner on second, I was up to bat.

For the first time all season, it was up to me to win or at least tie the game. I missed once and then again. Suddenly I was behind 0-2. Our dugout got very quiet. I got a knot of desperation. I didn’t have the slightest notion how to work the count, so I shut my eyes at Wyman’s next pitch and swung as hard I could.

I opened my eyes to see the ball rolling past the second baseman into center field. The outfielder was still fumbling for it as I rounded second. The third baseman missed the tag throw on me as our tying run crossed home plate, and I crossed the plate just as the third-baseman’s lob sailed over the catcher’s outstretched arms. My teammates were whooping and cheering. I ran into my father’s arms and burst into tears.

I have no idea whether Milo will ever have his own shot at Little League glory. He may decide he’d rather play soccer, though I hope not. He’s enjoying our rounds of toss too much to miss the chance to turn abject defeat into sweet victory with one swing. I plan to be there when he does.

Reach Lane Lambert at llambert@ledger.com.

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